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Saturday, October 12, 2013

EdCampMSP: Lunchtime Conversation

Talking about teachers "Asking kids for help" as an important way to engage students. #edcampMSP
— Michael Walker (@micwalker) October 12, 2013

I was having lunch today at EdCampMSP with some great folks from Byron, MN and Little Falls.Neil Adruschak was commenting on his experience with the Little Falls 1:1 iPad roll out.In year one, he got a call from a teacher, asking for help learning how to use Keynote on the iPad.Neil had never used it, and suggested that instead, the teacher ask his kids to show him how it was done.The next morning 25 out of 25 students showed up in his classroom, eager to share their knowledge of how to make a presentation in Keynote.A week later, the teacher called again, this time to learn how to use another product. Neil asked, "how did you learn to use Keynote?" "Oh, yeah!," said the teacher as he hung up.This year, teachers like the one above, who had highly engaged, motivated students in their classrooms, had step-by-step guides on some of the more popular tools they would be using with students, and didn't ask the students for help. What Adruschak has observed, is that those same students who were so engaged the year before, had shut down, as they felt no longer needed.One of the shifts teachers need to make, is feeling as though they need to be the expert at EVERYTHING in their classroom. They don't! Andruschak notes that they DO need to be experts at their curricular content, the standards, and ways to help students learn. But they don't need to know as much as the kids about everything. It reminds me of this image I found last year: